The ingredients call for drama, sprinkled with a dash of salt and a heaping portion of attitude. In addition, the recipe must be simmered on a high flame – for as long as it takes.

Knicks-Heat is always filled with blood, sweat and the inevitable tears. Everyone knows that. But this series, now in its fourth edition, always goes down to the wire.

If it’s a five-game series, they’ll play all five. If it’s a best-of-seven, you can bet Pat Riley’s fax machine on these two radish-bitter rivals going the distance. And now this year, the two dance yet again in an elimination game that will decide who advances and who goes home a loser. Here’s a look at the deciding games the last three seasons:

1997 Game 7 Heat 101, Knicks 90

Sit happens. After a brawl ignited when P.J. Brown introduced Charlie Ward to the floor in the final quarter of Game 5, the Knicks were forced to carry depleted numbers into the final two games of the Eastern Conference semifinals.

Leading the Heat 3-1, the Knicks wound up choking the series away when Patrick Ewing, Allan Houston, Charlie Ward, Larry Johnson and John Starks were all suspended for one game each for coming off the bench to throw hands with Miami.

The Heat reeled off three consecutive wins, highlighted by a 38-point outburst by Tim Hardaway in Game 7, dwarfing 37 by Ewing and sending the Knicks home for the summer.

1998 – Game 5 Knicks 98, Heat 81

Perhaps learning from their mistakes the year before, the Knicks managed to win Knicks-Heat II on the road in Miami without anyone being suspended.

Eventually falling to Reggie Miller before his “Superman” days, the Knicks saddled aboard Houston’s shoulders and rode their two-guard past the Heat.

Houston would finish the series strong, scoring 27 points in a Game 3 loss, followed by 18 in Game 4 and 30 in the victorious finale.

1999 Game 5 Knicks 78, Heat 77

With the rivalry in full-form and the series in its third year, the Knicks met the Heat as decided underdogs after a strike-shortened regular season.

The Heat, the No. 1 seed in the East, lost the series in dramatic form to the eighth-seeded Knicks. The most fantastic of the Knicks-Heat endings, this series floated off of Houston’s fingertips on a runner that fell through the rim. The shot killed the Heat for a second straight postseason and sent the Knicks on a march through Atlanta and Indiana before falling in the NBA Finals to San Antonio.